Acer OEM motherboard with Tualatin support \ VOGONS

Acer OEM motherboard with Tualatin support

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First post, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2014-04-05, 07:42

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Spotted this on eBay Australia ( he had two, I purchased one and just now the second one) for $29 delivered.

I asked the seller about the chipset and it confirmed that it's the B stepping with Tualatin support. So I took a gamble hoping it would work and it arrived yesterday.

The status of the bard was totally disgusting. Full of dust and grime, not a single attempt to clean it. I took it straight under the shower and hosed it down. This is my first attempt and washing a board this way and I believe I didn't let it dry enough. Yesterday it wouldn't even turn on, no fan action at all. Today it would POST, but the clock would run at triple the speed. This afternoon it seems to be fully working.

It boots with the PIII-S 1.4 which is great news. Unfortunately I snapped one of the cooling mounting hooks straight off. The cooler (it's massive with a 7000 rpm fan) works fine without fasting though, CPU sits at 40c.

The BIOS has an interesting note about being a sample version.

The board appears to be an OEM version of this AOpen board:

http://www.motherboards.org/mobot/motherboard … /AOpen/MX3SP-U/

The BIOS chip is socketed. But it's that little one. I believe the BIOS flasher I have comes with this adapter but I don't want to risk it at the moment because everything is working well.

But I wouldn't mind finding a newer OEM BIOS.

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Reply 1 of 8, by Logistics

Posted on 2014-04-06, 05:08

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This board looks like it's been recapped. I could swear those are Panasonic FM's which I doubt the board came with.

Edit: After googling some images of this board, I'm positive it's been recapped, which is not a bad thing at all because it should be far more stable with the current caps. I think you took a chance, washing it though. That's usually something you only do to a board before you recap it.

Reply 2 of 8, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2014-04-06, 05:14

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Logistics wrote:
This board looks like it's been recapped. I could swear those are Panasonic FM's which I doubt the board came with.

Edit: After googling some images of this board, I'm positive it's been recapped, which is not a bad thing at all because it should be far more stable with the current caps. I think you took a chance, washing it though. That's usually something you only do to a board before you recap it.

I had a look at the solder joints and they look fine. If the caps got replaced they did a very fine job.

I'm getting another of these, will keep an eye out of the caps.

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Reply 3 of 8, by F2bnp

Posted on 2014-04-06, 12:39

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Logistics wrote:

I think you took a chance, washing it though. That's usually something you only do to a board before you recap it.

Nah, not really. You just have to make sure it is really dry before powering it up again.

Reply 4 of 8, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2014-04-06, 12:46

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Yea it takes longer to dry than I thought.

I did also wash another board, an Abit IS-7 and even after drying a day it wouldn't post but shut itself off and on again. Today After 2 days it would work however...

But yea, you have no idea just how dirty that Acer board was. It was disgusting and I couldn't see another way of cleaning it 🤣

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Reply 5 of 8, by SquallStrife

Posted on 2014-04-07, 23:34

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F2bnp wrote:
Logistics wrote:

I think you took a chance, washing it though. That's usually something you only do to a board before you recap it.

Nah, not really. You just have to make sure it is really dry before powering it up again.

This. Water gets trapped under components (especially BGA and QFP IC's, and in the CPU socket) by capillary action, and can be nearly impossible to spot.

I usually use compressed air, or a bit of isopropyl alcohol to displace water under such components.

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Reply 6 of 8, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2014-04-07, 23:35

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Hehe yea I will try something else next time. My oven on lowest produces a nice warm temperature. The other option is using a fan heater at low setting.

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Reply 7 of 8, by F2bnp

Posted on 2014-04-07, 23:56

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Also make sure CPU,RAM and card slots don't have any water hidden inside 😜.

Reply 8 of 8, by Mau1wurf1977

Posted on 2014-04-08, 00:08

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F2bnp wrote:
Also make sure CPU,RAM and card slots don't have any water hidden inside 😜.

Yea good tip. A friend also suggested to remove any removable things such as BIOS chips, batteries (I did that).

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